Jailbait Justice

by Danny Hogan

  I guess it added to their confusion when they found themselves faced with a prudishly dressed young lady, with a crumby black wig and stupid hat on who, having dashed aside the .460, produced a .44 Magnum from under her skirts.

  The .460 is a big boy’s toy. The .44 Magnum is a tool – and I put it to work by gunning those bastards down as they tried to pull their own guns from their holsters.

  48

  I had gotten awful sticky under that there sun by the time I walked up to Elliot’s crumpled body. It looked for all the world like some lazy person had just dumped a load of arms and legs on the floor.

  Oh, he was still alive though; lord have mercy, yes he was. And he was producing this lovely wheezing noise, as if he was trying to suck air into a pair of burst lungs. It was a familiar sound.

  His specs were gone, as was as his hat, and his once cold eyes, though now looking sorry and weak, fixed on me. I tugged off my hat and wig, in case there was any doubt as to who had got him done.

  ‘Jezebel, you noob,’ he gasped. ‘You – you shoot a man in the back?’

  ‘I’ll shoot the likes of you any damn way you come.’

  ‘Come – come on then. Add my notch to your gun,’ he spluttered, and closed his eyes all peaceful.

  A few moments later his eyes flung open and he sucked up as much air as he could with a long, dry gasp. As he did so he found me sitting right by him, cross-legged and grinning.

  ‘Kill me, what you waiting for?’ he choked.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Wh–what?’

  ‘I reckon a tough old bastard like you should still have some time left in you yet.’

  He tried to lean up on his arm but only succeeded in convulsing and fitting.

  ‘You cruel, vindictive bitch. Kill me now, goddamn it,’ he spat and spluttered.

  ‘Naw, I’m just gonna sit here a while and watch you die. Then I’m gonna get me a steak, a drink…’ I put my hands to the ground behind me and leaned back, thrusting my chest out, ‘maybe some lovin’.

  ‘A notch don’t count unless you shoot me dead outright,’ he pleaded, with a wheeze. His brain most was probably bailing out by then.

  ‘I don’t care about notches and all that nonsense,’ I said, moving my head back as if I was trying to catch some rays.

  ‘Please – please kill me,’ he begged, eyes all filling with water as heaved up some nasty gunk. I’m sure he would have had his hands out pleading with me if his arms weren’t all bent up like old paperclips.

  I just looked over at him.

  ‘Alice Goldberg, Tyrone Phillips, both’a their families, every other innocent person who didn’t mean no one no harm; those you’ve brought misery and death to. You just think about them while your own bust up and shot innards poison you.’

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he barked with sudden energy and, seething like a beast: ‘You think killing my posse and letting me die slowly’ll make a damn bit of difference? Protector of the meek,’ he spat a bit of red gloop at me but it fell short. ‘You’re pathetic. Nothin’ more than a dreamer, an idiot and a slut – that’s what you are. Jailbait Justice, my ass.’

  I held my right hand up, like I was about to slap him, and I could see him brace himself, You should have seen his face when I simply came out with: ‘guilty as charged.’

  ‘There’s a whole lot more of us than there is of you, the meek. And they will come, one day, soon,’ he winced and moaned and, I reckon, he tried to wag a finger at me until his body told him nu-huh. ‘They will come and converge on you,’ he continued, nodding his head like a know-it-all child. ‘They will hang you,’ he finally hissed.

  I inspected my nails: ‘Ain’t you tried that already?’

  ‘Kill me you bitch,’ he squawked again, all wide eyed and bristling.

  ‘Besides,’ I added. ‘Think about this as you die. Way back, before I left Austin, I killed four of your kind, face to face, all in one go, out by Barton Springs. Not one of them got a shot off.’ I counted off the kills on my fingers as I spoke. ‘I got me a nice potbelly stove out of it, too. Oh, and I killed that fella what was sent first to fetch me for a hanging. Again, we was face to face and, again his gun was still sat in leather when I shot him.’ I was really warming to my theme.

  ‘Oh, I shot that dirty, good for nothing, sonofabitch Skinny Pete. He didn’t even have time to raise his gun. I killed The Colonel like it was just something to do. That coward Paulie Bastard got me with some lucky birdshot when I found him cowering in a bordello, but… I done blew his balls through his asshole.’ I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory.

  ‘I escaped when you tried to hang me and I just killed your new crew in the blink of an eye. Now I stand over you as you die. You get the picture? I might be small and I might be a woman but, as you can see, I can and I will take care of business; particularly when it comes to righting the wrongs greedy, uncaring bastards like you perpetrate.’

  Oh yeah, by then he was looking at me in a way that I took for horror.

  I couldn’t stop there: ‘It is me who will dog your kind at every turn. It is me that will come out winning. Face the facts, bitch, I’m way better than any of you so far.’

  I clambered up and stood above him, looked him dead in his wet eyes and, with all the black hate in my heart said: ‘lol.’

  He looked at me then, knowing full well he was done, which was all I ever asked for. Coughing once, spluttering twice he finally gave up with the sucking. I was looking back into his eyes and smiling as the light in ’em slowly faded.

  I sure do loves it when them bastards die slow.

  49

  I should, perhaps, have invested the gold in Alice’s scheme; the one to make it hard to forge bits. She had told me, on the route, that there was a guy in Houston, some kind of doctor or some such, who was working on it. She had told me his name and the institute he toiled at but there was two problems with that.

  One, I was intent on getting as far the hell away from Houston as possible and two, I dunno, I just didn’t like the idea of the scheme it the first place. Something didn’t ring true.

  Instead, I gave a load of gold to a group of folks who were setting up a school to try and educate kids and stuff. I gave them the gold on the promise that they would name it after my pal, Alice Goldberg. They shook my hand and kissed my cheeks an awful lot of times and, most sincerely, promised that they would. I ‘s’pose you could say that philanthropy doesn’t sound my style but it seemed a fitting tribute to the best pal I ever had.

  ***

  After a good night’s sleep I walked down the main street and looked out to the road to the west but, you must be fucking kidding if you thought I was going to work all that way again, no way. I toyed with the idea of going and getting myself in some trouble in New Orleans but, that would mean going through Houston and besides, I was homesick.

  I am not a complete angel as I am sure you know by now and I had, of course, kept some of the gold for myself. Just a little taste you understand; because I ain’t greedy neither.

  I hopped up onto the buckboard of the wagon I had hired and threw my bag in the back.

  ‘OK. Let’s move ’em out,’ I said to the driver, who I had specifically selected for his rugged, old school looks. Come on now, it surely was my turn for a little courting, as Alice called it, after all I had been through?

  As we rolled out through the main drag, I packed my bottom lip full of prime chew and looked around at the bandits, dandies, hobos, whores and he-shes commencing their hooting and revelling.

  We rolled past Cavanaugh’s and it was looking a lot dowdier in my mind. He had made good on the promises I had forced upon him so far: I had watched Alice’s funeral from afar but I would have to wait until I got back to Austin to see if he had made good on the other thing I had asked. I was sure as Sunday follows Saturday that I would be coming up against that wretched little varmint again some day.

  As we rolled past the entrance to the town and out onto the trail
proper, I can’t really explain it, I had this feeling that something was going to happen that would interfere with my return to Austin. I just knew it in my bones.

  Trying not to gain the attention of my handsome driver I moved my right hand across my stomach and stroked the smooth wooden handle of my gun. She was, after all, the only true friend I had left.

  Heartfelt Acknowledgements

  Mum & the old fella, the Pulmans, Borzones, Burkes, O’Neils, Donkins and Deutroms and Giles, Nicola Davies, my cuz Matt Louis over the water at Out Of The Gutter, Tony Black, the legendary Cathi Unsworth and Mike, Allan Gutherie, Paul D Brazill, Jason Michel and Pulp Metal Magazine, Keith Rawson, Chris Le Tray, and, Dominic Milne and Becky, Icy Sedgwick, Carrie Clevenger, Alan Kelly, Brian “Dinger” Bell, Michelle Turlock, Jason Duke, BAFTA award winning Lawrence Rickard and the long-suffering Mary, Eve and Jay Murphy, Carla, Wallace and Little Heather, Kitty Peels and Nathan, Bella de Jac and Matt, Bea DeVile, Coco DeVille, my old skinhead crew Brian, Tarik, Steve Verne, Jimmy Ovens and Rebecca, Herve, Liz, little Rye, Pascal and the other fella from Deadline, Matt, Helen and Beth the punk kid, Lynn, Grace, Gina, Jacqui, Claire, Catriona, Rhiannon and Rocky at Indepenpress Publishing Ltd without whom none of this would be possible, Jane Bradley and for Book’s Sake, Katie Allan and The Fat Quarter, James at Brighton Source, Garage Studios, Emma and Stevi at Ophelia Fancy, my man Matt Martin, What’s On Guide Brighton, Naked Magazine, Bizarre Magazine, my people in Houston at Murder By The Book and their customers, James Woodford at Into You Tattoo studio Brighton, and of course the queen of nutters Sally F**cking Reynolds.

  Little Alex Hughes, Nathalie Agnus and the much missed Tura Satana for providing the inspiration for the Jezebel character and Marty Robbins for the music while I wrote.

  My brothers Alex Young and Little French Kevin Mason.and most importantly my sister Romaine “Big Modge” Bowman lest I forget.

  Mostly I would like to thank my long-suffering wife Dr. Kim, who so stoically has put up with a god-forsaken writer in her threshold.